Show Summary

PBS presents a revealing four-part documentary series that talks to nearly 100 stars from television's formative years. The special covers sitcoms, late-night, variety, and game shows with interviews with the stars and archival clips revealing never-seen-before images as well as timeless clips.

As a series, this was a mixed bag for me, some things were interesting but overall the one hour format sometimes limited the treatment of classic television.

A good, but not great, examination of four of television's more well-known genres.

Part of the problem with "Pioneers of Television" for me was that it often comes off as uncritical and pretty much gushes over all its content, OK, but I was looking for a more warts-and-all approach. I was mostly disappointed with the "Comedy" episode, it spends a lot of time on the well-known "I Love Lucy" and then tends to focus on a small sample of what came after. There is a LOT of 50s comedy left out again, and as time goes by, more will be forgotten. "Late Night" suffered a bit from too much Jay Leno in commentary - while many like his approach, he is far different than his predecessors and is maybe not the best-qualified to really comment. "Variety" and particularly "Game Shows" worked best for me.Nevertheless, while this program is not all it could be, there are interesting comments from contemporaries in each of the one hour segments. I just hate to see the few opportunities to really examine golden age TV in depth (for example, no drama or anthology segments?) squandered. It seems like Americans have shorter and shorter memories, and as the kinescopes of TV are gone and the tapes and films sometimes lost or deteriorating - the clock is ticking.moreless

THIS WEEK, THE DVD RELEASE OF THE EXCITING NEW HIT DRAMA DAMAGES HITS THE SHELVES. WATCH GLENN CLOSE AS SHE SHOWS US THE ROPES OF HIGH-STAKES LITIGATION IN THIS LEGAL THRILLER SET IN NEW YORK CITY. IF YOU'RE IN THE MOOD FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE LESS DRAMATIC, TAKE A GANDER AT VOLUME FIVE OF AQUA TEAM HUNGER FORCE AS THE GROUP OF STRANGE FAST-FOOD ITEMS SOLVE MYSTERIES.

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